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The Brewers’ corner of the Internet had a mini-meltdown last week when the team said Jimmy Nelson was being shut down from throwing for a few days after some kind of arm pain/discomfort/fatigue, but it looks like the right-hander is back on track in his long road back to a big league mound.
The Brewers had an off-day in their Cactus League schedule today, but several pitchers stayed on schedule by throwing live batting practice sessions. That included Nelson, and apparently, “nothing happened” — which while making for a terrible headline for a blog post, is actually pretty good news:
Everything went as expected in Jimmy Nelson's live BP today, Craig Counsell said. Twenty pitches or so. "Nothing happened," CC said, which is exactly what they'd hoped. https://t.co/bmR2FoDWtG
— Adam McCalvy (@AdamMcCalvy) March 4, 2019
#Brewers manager Craig Counsell said RHP Jimmy Nelson's live BP went well. Retired three hitters on 20 pitches, and that was all that was planned -- the one inning. Next time out, he'll get up and down, simulating different innings. So, Nelson is moving forward.
— Tom (@Haudricourt) March 4, 2019
Nelson is still a couple steps away from pitching in an actual game, but if he responds well in the next day or two after throwing, the next step after the multi-inning session could be an inning in a Cactus League game. From there, he’d still have to build up arm strength over the next few weeks.
Making the Opening Day roster likely remains one of Nelson’s goals, but considering it’s a little more than 3.5 weeks away, it still doesn’t seem all that likely, and making the team as a starter is even less likely. Still, after a year of disappointment, any news — or, in this case, non-news — is good news.